Cowabunga, dudes! Today we're going to talk about a franchise near and dear to my heart: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Known as the TMNT or Ninja Turtles for short, Magic's tie-in set will be out in less than a month, and because I'm such a big fan, I want to share my love with all, especially those of you who might not know much about the franchise! Let's dive in.

Who are the Ninja Turtles?

TMNT Bundle Box Art by Javier Charro

The core cast of the Ninja Turtles are four brothers, who also happen to be turtles, ninjas, mutants, and teenagers. In every version of their story, they're mutated by The Ooze (a mutagen of varying origins) and are raised by Splinter, the Mentor, who names them each after a renaissance painter.

The character of Splinter varies a lot between adaptations. In some cases he is Hamato Yoshi, a ninja mutated into a rat form. In others, he's Yoshi's pet rat. In still others, he was movie star Lou Jitsu. In every iteration, he's a devoted father and mentor to the boys.

Leonardo, the Balance is the leader, and the most straight-laced and dedicated to Master Splinter's teachings. Donatello, the Brains is the nerdy tech whiz, as at home on a computer as in a fight. Raphael, the Muscle has anger management issues, and is by far the most aggressive of the turtles. Michelangelo, the Heart is the lovable goof, who is more concerned about his next meal than his training.

Their primary supporting cast in almost every iteration are April O'Neil, Hacktivist, a human who discovers the turtles and is usually their first ally. April is most often depicted as a reporter, or at least someone passionate about uncovering the truth. The other major supporting cast member is Casey Jones, Vigilante, who is a sports-themed vigilante with anger issues, often with ties to the Purple Dragons, a minor antagonist gang.

Opposite the turtles are Krang & Shredder. Krang is from a species called the Utrom, who are either space aliens or extradimensional beings, depending on the adaptation, with designs on conquering Earth. Shredder is the turtle's original and most iconic foe. The sharply-armored leader of the Foot Clan, of which the Splinter often (but not always) has a bad history. Bebop & Rocksteady are the iconic idiot henchman duo from the original cartoon and most subsequent adaptations.

Turtle Genesis

Leonardo, Sewer Samurai by Ryan Pancoast

The initial genesis of the Ninja Turtles was a collaboration between artists Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman. The turtles grew out of an idea parodying one of the more popular comics of the early 1980s, Daredevil. Daredevil was a comic where the titular character gained powers after being splashed by chemicals dropped from a truck. He was trained by a ninja mentor named Stick, and regularly fought an evil ninja clan known as the Hand.

The Ninja Turtles, by contrast, were mutated after being splashed by ooze dropped from a truck, were trained by a ninja mentor named Splinter, and regularly fought a ninja clan known as the Foot. There's more there to the parody, including making the turtles teenage mutants (like the X-Men), but I think the parallels are clear enough already.

While the initial concept was based on parodying the popular Marvel comics of the time, it quickly grew to be more than that. Their self-published indie comic quickly spun into one of the most popular and successful TV, video game, and toy lines of all time. I can't possibly cover everything, but I'll give as good a rundown of the history of the TMNT here as I can.

The Mirage Era

Leonardo, Sewer Samurai by Kevin Eastman

While the original 1984 comic book, published by Eastman and Laird's Mirage Studios, spawned the core concepts of the Ninja Turtles, it wasn't until the 1987 tv series that TMNT became mainstream and introduced the most iconic and lasting elements of the franchise.

The early Mirage turtles lacked distinctive personalities and each looked pretty much the same, down to their similar red bandanas. The cartoon introduced strong personalities for each of them, alongside four different identifying colors: red for Raph, orange for Mikey, blue for Leo, and purple for Donny. The original comics' tone was brooding and serious, like the comics it was based on, but the cartoon went for wacky children's humor.

It was a massive success, spawning one of the most successful toy lines of all time, some of the greatest classic arcade games, and a trilogy of beloved live-action films that balanced the humor of the cartoon with the darker tone of the comics. To say that the toys from this endeavor sold well would be a massive understatement. For a generation of kids raised in the late 80s and early 90s, TMNT became a cultural juggernaut. Entire aisles at the store were dedicated solely to TMNT.

And then, after a decade of cultural dominance, it all came crashing down. 1997's live-action show from Saban (of Power Rangers fame) flopped, and the turtles disappeared as Pokemon and other franchises took over children's imaginations.

In the 2000s, TMNT relaunched to modest success with a new 2003 cartoon that ran for seven years but never reached quite the same level of success. Personally, the 2003 cartoon continues to be my favorite iteration of the turtles, matching the films in balancing the darker tone with humor. This era reached moderate success, but multiple rebrands of the cartoon combined the excellent computer-generated 2007 film flopping, things were looking grim.

A final 'goodbye' to the Mirage Era was released in a made-for-tv film called Turtles Forever, featuring a multiversal team-up of both the 1987 cartoon and the newer 2003 turtles, as well as their comic counterparts. Kevin Eastman had long since departed Mirage, and Peter Laird was tired of running the studio and the turtles. He sold the franchise to Viacom (and its subsidiary Nickelodeon) for 60 million dollars in 2009.

Nickelodeon Takes Over

Turtles Forever by Devin Elle Kurtz

Under Nickelodeon's leadership, development of a new, computer-generated cartoon began, which would debut in 2012. This cartoon, while retaining the turtle's humor, also pushed the character designs in weirder directions. The turtles felt younger, the mutant designs became messier, and in general the show felt more chaotic than previous adaptations. The 2012 cartoon wound down after five seasons, giving way to a retooled reboot.

Nickelodeon also licensed the comic rights to IDW Comics, who have been publishing them in an ongoing series for almost 15 years now. A pair of films, produced by Michael Bay, were released in 2014 and 2016, featuring much larger and more crude versions of the turtles (with humor akin to Bay's Transformers films).

While these movies aren't popular among turtle fans, they did introduce the first real character design updates for the turtles since the original cartoon. Up until this point, outside their weapon, shade of green, and the color of their bandana, the turtles were largely interchangeable.

There were some pretty good reasons for this, from a toy design standpoint. You only needed one mold for all the turtles if they all looked the same, after all. But the 2014 film gave Donatello a pair of goggles and Raphael a full head-covering bandana, both of which have become a staple of their designs, even multiple iterations later. Including in the upcoming Magic set.

In the wake of the success of shorter-form animated shows like "Teen Titans Go!," 2018's Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a comedy first, action show second, with each episode split into two shorter stories. While it's a sort-of cult favorite among turtle fans, it was cancelled after just two seasons, but found success on streaming during COVID and was followed up by a Direct-to-Netflix film in 2022. Despite my initial dislike of the concept, it punches way above its weight class, and ended up being my son's first Ninja Turtles show.

That catches us up to the modern day and the current iteration of the turtles on-screen: 2023's Mutant Mayhem and its tie-in cartoon on Paramount+, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Inspired by Into the Spider-Verse's unique style, the first Mutant Mayhem took a much more stylized approach to the turtles, pushing the weirdness much further than even the 2012 cartoon. The sequel releases next year, two seasons of the interquel cartoon can be found online.

Where To Start?

Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order by Jason Rainville

While it's clear that the new Magic set with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles draws inspiration from across the varied history of the Ninja Turtles, there's really two major influences to be seen: the original 1987 cartoon, and the IDW comics.

If you're interested in reading, almost every character of note from Ninja Turtles history is part of the IDW comics canon, and alongside the original cartoon seems to be one of the bigger sources of inspiration for the set.

Despite the Mirage comics being the origin of the Turtles, the comics themselves just... aren't spectacular enough by today's standards to warrant reading first. IDW's Saturday Morning Adventures line captures the look and feel of the original cartoon, while the main comic does its own thing synthesizing plot threads from throughout TMNT history.

If you're just interested in watching, pretty much the entire history of TMNT cartoons are available to watch on Paramount+ (and you can get most of the Nick era on Netflix). The new film, Mutant Mayhem, is fun and will soon have a sequel in theaters you can catch up for. I don't recommend the 1987 series, as it is very much a relic of its time, although watching an episode or two can't hurt.

My personal favorite is the 2003 series, as I mentioned before, along with the 1990s films which are just fun martial films with great Jim Henson Creature Shop costumes. They hold up surprisingly well.

Where Next?

I'm going to be doing a deep dive into Ninja Turtles history with my Teenage Mutant Flavor Gems article next month, where I'll go into much more detail on the origins of the various costumes and characters in the setting. There wasn't even room here to talk about the video games, either, which also drastically inspired this set. Check it out soon!